The present disclosure relates to a paint containing a liquid crystal monomer and a retardation element manufactured by using the paint. In addition, the present disclosure relates to a display device including the above retardation element. Furthermore, the present disclosure relates to a method for manufacturing the above retardation element.
As a stereoscopic image display device using a pair of polarized glasses, there has been a device which emits different types of light in polarization state from a left-eye pixel and a right-eye pixel. In the display device as described above, after a viewer wears a pair of polarized glasses, light emitted from a left-eye pixel is allowed to enter only the left eye of the viewer, and light emitted from a right-eye pixel is allowed to enter only the right eye of the viewer, so that a stereoscopic image can be observed.
For example, according to Japanese Patent No. 3360787, in order to emit different types of light in polarization state from a left-eye pixel and a right-eye pixel, a retardation element is used. In this retardation element, a retardation region having a lagging axis or a leading axis in one direction is provided corresponding to the left-eye pixel, and a retardation region having a lagging axis or a leading axis in one direction different from the direction of the above retardation region is provided corresponding to the right-eye pixel.
Accordingly, many methods for solving the problem described above have been proposed in the past. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-248061 has disclosed a technique in which before a step of curing a liquid crystal layer applied on an alignment film, a heating temperature of the liquid crystal layer is increased to a temperature at which the liquid crystal layer shows a liquid crystal phase. However, when a polyfunctional liquid crystal monomer is used as a liquid crystal monomer, the temperature at which the liquid crystal layer shows a liquid crystal phase is increased so as to induce thermal polymerization, and as a result, the uniformity of the liquid crystal alignment is disadvantageously degraded.